3366 Entomological Society, 



He also exhibited a curious nest of eggs of a spider (Epeira zebrata ?), which he found 

 at Nice last spring. It was of a dirty white colour, of a spherical shape, and about an 

 inch in diameter; M. Guerin had informed him that these nests were sometimes thrice 

 as large. 



Alluding to the experiment of Sir James Koss, mentioned at the last meeting, Mr. 

 Curtis read the following note from the ' Appendix ' to Sir J. Ross's Voyage, in 1830, 

 transcribed by him from Sir James's MSS. — " About thirty of the caterpillars were 

 put into a box in the middle of September, and after being exposed to the severe win- 

 ter temperature of the next three months, they were brought into a warm cabin, where, 

 in less than two hours, every one of them returned to life, and continued for a whole 

 day walking about. They were again exposed to the air at a temperature of about 40° 

 below zero, and became immediately hard frozen ; in this state they remained a week, 

 and on being brought again into the cabin, only twenty-three came to life. These 

 were at the end of four hours put out once more into the air, and again frozen ; after 

 another week they were brought in, when only eleven were restored to life. A fourth 

 time they were exposed to the winter temperature, and only two returned to life on be- 

 ing again brought into the cabin. These two survived the winter, and in May an im- 

 perfect Laria (Rossii) was produced from one, and six flies from the other; both of them 

 formed cocoons, but that which produced the flies was not so perfect as the other." 



Referring to the exhibition at the meeting of this Society on the 4lh of Novem- 

 ber, 1850, by Mr. Evans, of some Culicidae received from the Great Slave Lake, Mr. C. 

 said he had no doubt they were the C. Caspius of Pallas, of which insect Sir James 

 Ross remarked that " It first appeared about the 10th of July, on the 15th it became 

 very numerous, and on the 22nd so exceedingly troublesome as to prevent the neces- 

 sary duties of the ship. They swarmed in perfect clouds over the marshes, and their 

 larvae constitute the principal food of the trout that inhabit the lakes. On the 13th of 

 August they came out again after the rain, but were no longer very troublesome, being 

 apparently nipped by the frost at night." Mr. Curtis added that Sir James told him 

 the crew were obliged to wear nets over their faces while fishing. 



The Chironomus and Tipula exhibited by Mr. White at the last meeting, Mr. Cur- 

 tis said were described by him in the 'Appendix' to Sir J. Ross's Voyage already men- 

 tioned, the former being the C. polaris of Kirby, the latter the Tipula arctica, Curtis. 

 It was a curious fact, that all the Culicidse received from the Arctic regions were 

 females. 



With reference to the note on Ocypus* olens, read at the last meeting, Mr. Curtis 

 said that in the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' of November 5, 1842, he had made the follow- 

 ing note on this insect, showing the value of these persecuted animals in gardens, es- 

 pecially in the autumn, when earwigs are most abundant and destructive to flowers: — 



" Having heard that our rove-beetle was the natural enemy of earwigs, I placed 

 one with a few of these insects under a tumbler glass. It commenced running round 

 the inside, now and then resting, but it soon seized an immature earwig by the mid- 

 dle, and a full-grown one soon after, just behind the forceps, the back being upper- 

 most, and in an hour and a half it had eaten six earwigs." 



Mr. Curtis then referred to vol. i. p. 107 of the new series of this Society's Trans- 

 actions, where, as one of the Gelcchiae, Mr. Douglas has recorded Butalis cerealella as 



* Erichson, Gaubil, &c, adopt this name, and not Goorius. 



